So Different

So, I figured I should substitute from time to time, at least to keep in touch with the world of education, if not to earn a modest income that could help me pay for the exorbitant price of health insurance. I registered in a nearby county, sent them my résumé, three recommendations, college transcripts, took a 20-hour-long online training, then 3 more online trainings, went to (unpaid) orientation after being asked to print on my own paper and fill at home the 3 dozen pages of necessary forms, got fingerprinted (at my expense) and background-checked (at my expense), peed in a cup (that I paid for) to prove that I am not a crackhead, and now I can substitute teach. I counted that it did cost me $138 in cash and 26 hours of unpaid training to get there.

Ventriloquist and his Dummy

I was impressed by that county's district offices, a stark contrast with the Taj Mahal of Palm Beach County. Apparently, here people are more important than shiny offices. I am looking forward to observing how a smaller district deals with things... I will of course follow all the rules that have been made clear to me during the initial training ("Don't touch students!"), a subsequent online training ("Don't touch students!"), and orientation ("Don't touch students!"). I hope students get the same kind of training and orientation ("Don't touch teachers!").

So Selfless

The 2016 Jeopardy Teacher Tournament got rebroadcast last week, and one of the finalists, Kaberi Chakrabarty, thanked her principal for "allowing [her] to be there." Really? Teachers have to ask permission to leave town? Kaberi finished 2nd in the tournament and pocketed $50,000 in winnings, which amounts to a year salary for many teachers. I checked her contract with the school district of Joliet, IL, and, though teachers over there are significantly better paid and get better benefits than here, I could not find any provision restricting teachers from engaging in open displays of extraordinary amounts of knowledge.

As I was watching the three finalists exult at their achievements, I knew that they would probably feel the pressure to donate some of their winnings back to the school that "allowed" them to attend Jeopardy, because that is what is expected of teachers. We believe that teachers, even though paid insufficiently, should contribute financially to their schools, to complement what taxpayers and the politicians they elected refuse to provide for the education of our children.

There is no such expectation when any other professional wins prizes on Jeopardy or other game shows. I would like to see Harry Broker, after winning a bundle on the show, declare: "I plan to give 10% back to my employer, Goldman Sachs, for allowing me to leave town and to let colleagues take charge of my clients' accounts. Hopefully, that money will be put to good use, like to give a nice golden parachute to an undeserving executive."

So Done With It

So horrified was I to find out it has almost been a FULL YEAR without any post on this blog, I had to keep you informed with what is going on. I think that the sense of humor that used to be my salvation abandoned me in the last year. I started taking this nonsensical world that is the educational institution at face value, and of course I started becoming irremediably and irretrievably irritated by it. I could feel the effect that stress was having on my body. Doctors were staring to circle above in the sky like vultures, waiting for an easy prey.

My doctors circling high above

I was ready to start this year when we were told that two of our planning periods every week would now be hijacked by administration for "common planning" sessions, and we would better show up, or else... (see my previous post on the new superintendent making us offers we can't refuse). I figured it would maybe last two months, encounter passive resistance from teachers, and then go away like all the other stupid mandates we have been given over the years. However, when at a more than four hour long faculty meeting we were told that on top of losing two plannings a week, I would have planning periods of only 36 minutes, and that we would also have to spend every available minute of our time doing "duty" to make sure that we do more tasks usually reserved to administration, I snapped. I first asked other teachers if they were planning to fight this with me, and when they went unresponsive, I just gave up, went to my room and wrote my resignation letter.

Yes, you read that right: I QUIT! I served my two week notice, enjoyed teaching like never before now that I knew it would be over soon, handed over my keys and ID, and rode into the sunset. Even though the superintendent backed off from his mandate, principals are still eager to implement it, and with an increasing proportion of teachers being now at the mercy of their principals since tenure has been nixed by the idiots in Tallahassee, they will reduce actual time to prepare, grade papers, run copies to a minimum. My former colleagues will adapt by working during their lunch time, at home, or by staying at school longer (and unpaid) hours, but I refuse to.

What is common planning? It is something that ALL good teachers already do, did not need to be mandated, but since the trend now is to mistrust teachers and to think that, instead of the profession having just a few bad apples (like every profession) and a lot of dedicated teachers, people seem to think of us as a majority of slackers who need to be controlled more. That mistrust is, in the end, what pushed me out. I was doing an amazing job, surrounded by incredibly talented colleagues (this school has been rated "A" since its inception), and all we got as reward for our hard work were constant reminders of how, yes, the school as a whole was doing great, but data showed that a minority of male students with Turkish-speaking parents earning yearly income between $30,000 and $32,500 (I am exaggerating, but only slightly) was slightly underperforming the general student population, and therefore we still needed to revise our teaching methods.

This guy's unaware of the vultures
circling high above his head.

So, what am I going to do now? Every teacher was asking me that, meaning "as a job," of course. The unemployment rate in this country is at one of its lowest of all times, and the economy is roaring. Nobody should worry about me. I will be just fine. I can always do what other people do: invest the fortune I made teaching all these years and become even richer. You know we are paid like kings, actors, or professional athletes, right? That is why so much is asked from us.

So Different

Considering the wide success Dr. Robert Marzano has had reinventing the wheel in the field of education, it should come as no surprise that he now turns his eyes toward other fields. Schools have been in existence for about 2,400 years. Organized religions have been around for 4,100 years. They certainly are due for some Marzano-style revamping.

Modern Mona Lisa

My students can tell you this much about me: I suck at drawing. If I draw a cat on the board, and then a cow next to it, you won't be able to tell the difference. What do people like me with no artistic talent do to illustrate a point? We use clip-art or stock photography. If we can't find what we're looking for, we can always modify it slightly.

Marzano excels at nothing, except taking other people's ideas and presenting them in a new way. He renamed rubrics "scales," and teachers "educators." His buzzwords abound. If you want your principal to like you, tell her or him that you plan lessons with fidelity to achieve rigor. I have no clue what all this means, but it makes administrators and district suits jubilate when they hear those words.

So, what about religion? If God created the world, and Jesus saved it, then Marzano will make you hate it. Here are some ideas to make things look brand new without much work:

• Use "Avatar" where "Christ" is used today.
• Prefer "Redeemer" to "Savior."
• "Liege" sounds fancier than "Lord."

Finally, instead of "faith," Marzano for sure will promote his favorite word "fidelity." So, if you are a Christian Marzano enthusiast, you can profess your fidelity in Jesus-Avatar and recognize Him as your Liege and Redeemer. Just don't forget to send your tithe to the Marzano Institute for Personal Enrichment. If you are a religious person reading this and you find it offensive, then you understand how teachers feel about this clown: 

Dr. Robert Marzano

So Futuristic

One challenge education has to face is that students of today need to be prepared for the economy of tomorrow. Educators have to anticipate what the future will look like for their students. We can look at current trends and use them to imagine how they will evolve.

Uber, Airbnb, and other companies are riding the wave of the "sharing economy." If we are to believe economic gurus, it is the wave of the future. The whole concept originates in the idea that anybody can do anything. DIY stores may have started that trend. Instead of hiring a qualified professional who possesses the skills and the tools needed to perform a job, people go to the DIY store, purchase the materials, the tools, and then spend hours figuring out how to do the job. Most of the time, they paint themselves into a corner. Sometimes, they end up in the hospital, except, of course, if they decide to reduce the fracture themselves and to do one more run to the DIY store to purchase some plaster to make a cast.

So, today, you can rent your sofa for one night to a "couchsurfer" or give El Chapo a ride to the airport. If this trend continues, soon anybody with a well-secured basement or a "red room" will be able to offer their service to house a few inmates. Calling 911 will connect you with Rita, who, from the comfort of her living room, will be able to dispatch a few armed guys from the neighborhood to deal with your intruders, or to try to negotiate an acceptable fee for some hose-owning neighbors to come and extinguish your house fire.

My generation was raised to believe in specialization. I specialize in an area, gain experience, become an "expert" at it, and sell my goods or services for money. I then turn to other people to help me with things that are beyond my expertise, and I pay them for their goods or services. However, if this "sharing economy" trend continues, though, people will return to the "jack-of-all-trades" era. Teachers, then, need to create Renaissance students with an encyclopedic knowledge. The problem with that idea is that, if 20 centuries ago, all of the world's knowledge could be contained in the 20,000 entries of Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historiae, today we create as much data in one day as the world has in those 20 centuries since Pliny the Elder.

Some of this data ends up on the YouTube video that shows you how to change your refrigerator lamp yourself, so knowledge does not have to be memorized anymore. What we need to do is to teach students to follow directions, and they will be able to do anything... Unfortunately, the ONE THING my students have the most difficult time doing is to follow directions.

So Relaxed

For teachers, summer is more than just a vacation. This is the time to reflect, to review, to plan, to devise new strategies, to discover new methods, to imagine new ways. As I was sitting in my tiny room at the MIST (Mental Institution for Secondary Teachers), I came across Netflix's corporate culture slide presentation. Netflix believes that by treating its employees like adults and by trusting their judgment, it obtains better results. One thing it sees as completely counter-productive is top-down management. I could not help to compare that to the way teachers are seen by our administrators.

When I entered the profession, the main attraction (other, of course, than the freedom to spend some time in a mental institution during the summer months) was that I was given a clear goal (to teach a specified curriculum to a number of students), and that I could then devise my own ways to reach that goal. Teaching is an art, so teachers are aware of their imperfections and constantly strive to perfect their art. Today, teachers are told what to do on every level, on every little detail, on a daily basis. Our creativity is replaced by "data-driven" point charts. The fun is gone, as we are made to feel like robots delivering pre-packaged, freeze-fried, standardized, tasteless, and odorless content. Children feel it as well, as they have become the recipients of that uniformity as well as having been reduced to simple performers of THE TEST.

It is now time for my supervised stroll in the park outside. Enjoy the slideshow.

So Unionized

So, before we address the results of lengthy bargaining sessions between our union and the school district, I would like to tell you about an episode of Netflix's first season of Orange Is The New Black.

In this episode, the warden organizes elections for inmates to pick representatives. He then invites those representatives in his office to hear their concerns and suggestions. He starts the meeting by offering them doughnuts, then asks them to state their concerns. He takes copious notes, then states that implementing measures to improve things under the current budget would mean that he could not afford to bring doughnuts at meetings anymore. Everyone then understands that nothing will change and that the election and the committee were just a way for the warden to give inmates the illusion they were being heard.

Now, I believe I wanted to talk about the bargaining sessions between the union and the district... Or did I just do that? Sometimes I can be so easily distracted...